


rivers I cannot cross

by valety



Category: Bravely Default (Video Game) & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Freeform, Grief/Mourning, POV Second Person, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spoilers, survivor's guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-17 02:17:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8126582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valety/pseuds/valety
Summary: Agnès is waiting.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I haven’t played bravely second, so I apologize for what is bound to be a multitude of inaccuracies 
> 
> anyway. warnings for the stuff mentioned in the tags, as well as mild suicidal ideation
> 
> please help agnès

A vestal: priestess, bride, and servant to the crystals. A weaver of prayers who ensures their eternal glow. A devotee who lives and dies solely to see them shine, born for no other purpose but to endlessly perform the necessary rites.

These are the words that have shaped your life ever since you were old enough to understand what _crystal_ meant. These are the words that have shaped your life since before you were even born.

You were not supposed to form earthly attachments. Your sole concern was meant to be the crystal, to whom your every breath was dedicated. Because of this, the temple had become your sanctuary from the corruptions of the outside world. You were meant to have no family; you were meant to have no personal belongings; you were meant to stay untainted. You could not offer up your prayers with a clouded mind. You had to remain pure, so that your prayers would _also_ remain pure.

You did not remain pure.

 

 

To balance the world on one’s shoulders is an impossible task. Nobody’s shoulders could possibly be broad enough, least of all those belonging to a sheltered vestal like yourself, one so senseless she could barely navigate the temple she had lived in sometimes.

You’d had some vague notion of seeking out assistance – perhaps the burden would not feel like _quite_ so much if you were not the only one to carry it – but even then, before Olivia, it had felt taboo to even think of it. You had been born for the sole purpose of tending to the crystals, after all. What good were you if you could not even manage that?

…then again, you _hadn’t_ managed that, had you?

And some frightened part of you – some desperate, fluttering doubt – wonders now and again if, perhaps, _all_ of it had been your fault. Had your dissatisfaction crept into your prayers? Had your loneliness tainted the crystal’s purity? Were you, in fact, to blame for the disasters?

You have no way of knowing. But at the Great Chasm, you had very nearly stepped forward and over the ledge, letting the wind embrace you one final time.

You hadn’t. Instead, you’d clasped your hand before you.

“Can you hear my prayers?” you’d asked, and you’d thought, _my life is not my own to take._

 

 

Not long afterwards, you’d met a boy.

You wonder, now, if Airy had somehow known. Was that why the Miracle had been so vital to her plans? To ensure the vestal wouldn’t fall?

Either way, you’d met a boy.

He did not call you _vestal_ or _the girl._ He only called you Agnès, and he smiled at you with eyes that had also lost everything.

He’d said, _you’re a light._ He’d said, _my ray of hope._ Not the world’s, but his and his alone.

Somehow, that did not seem so frightening, to be tasked with carrying one person, rather than the world. Somehow, that did not seem so overwhelming.

Even you could manage that much, you’d thought.

 _You are my hope,_ he’d said, and you wish now that you could have told him, _you are mine as well._

 

 

You can’t tell him anything, anymore.

 

 

The days slip through your fingers like so many grains of sand, measuring not hours, but weeks and months and someday, years. Time burrows underneath your skin, etching lines that had not been there previously, leaving shadows beneath eyes that were meant to stay unclouded by the world, focused only on the crystal’s light.

You catch a glimpse of yourself occasionally, reflected in the smooth glass of the vivipod. You look older now. Changed. You wonder if he will recognize you when his eyes finally reopen.

You cannot visit every day. There is a world to be rebuilt, wounds to be stitched shut. When he wakes up, you want to be able to show him Luxendarc reborn. He was not wrong to put his faith in you. You hope.

(Are you allowed to hope?)

You cannot visit every day, but you visit when you can, keeping a long, silent vigil at his side, watching the slow, unwelcome changes gradually come over him. He grows paler and paler, thinner and thinner, while his hair grows longer and longer, practically covering his face, masking those eyes that had once known grief like yours. Deeper, perhaps, for although you’d known and loved your sisters as well as you’d been able to, you know better than anybody else that that wasn’t very well at all. You had not been raised to love, after all.

Still, even if you had not been raised for such a thing, perhaps it’s something you can learn.

Perhaps you’ve already been learning it.

 

 

You were not supposed to form earthly attachments.

 

 

Edea sits with you sometimes. She’s the only one who dares to accompany you on your vigil. To the others, you are an imposing figure: the newly-inaugurated Pope of the Crystal Orthodoxy isn’t someone you can simply _sit_ with, and so your guard remains by the door, keeping a safe distance. She is the only one who sees you not as a symbol, but as a friend.

“It’ll be soon,” she says, voice brazen, confident.

“How do you know?” you ask, your own voice faltering.

“Oh, well, we have dozens of white magic specialists assigned to his case,” Edea replies without so much as a trace of hesitation. “They find it _fascinating._ They won’t rest until they’ve come up with a solution. And besides, it’s Tiz – there’s no way he’d keep you waiting longer than he had to. He’d never forgive himself! And even if he did, _I_ wouldn’t forgive _him,_ so he’d better wake up soon if he knows what’s good for him.”

Your mouth falls open. You wish to offer some kind of similar reassurance – that Edea’s _him_ wouldn’t keep her waiting longer than he had to, either. But you see the firm set of her mouth, the smile that she refuses to let fall, and you say nothing.

She would know that you’d be lying.

(What’s worse, then? To have someone snatched away, or to have them choose to leave you behind?)

You slip your hand in hers. She looks momentarily surprised, but then accepts it with a squeeze, blue eyes softening.

The days may be slipping through your fingers like so many grains of sand, but maybe, if you can fit your hands together, you will be able to fill the holes your loved ones left behind. Maybe you will be able to start catching them then, letting the hourglass grow full. That way, when the reunion someday comes, you will still have a future left to share with them.

For now, you sit, side by side, the vestal and the knight, watching the pale blue light of the vivipod.

He will wake up soon.  

 

 

 _You are my hope,_ he’d said.

Perhaps someday – when he finally wakes up, for he will surely wake up soon – you will finally be able to answer him.


End file.
